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Small, cheap electric cars are the best! Fun to drive, easy to maintain. I own an VW eUP 2015 model which costed me €4000 used. I do not know if they where for sale outside of Norway (I only see them here!), but it is the perfect car for 95% of our mobility needs.

I drive it to work every day (where I can charge it for free). I drive it to Oslo and can park/charge almost anywhere around town for really cheap, about €3/h, which is nothing compared to regular parking, which is usually ~€16/h.

I drive it to the Netherlands, about ~950km in two days, without a hint of range anxiety, thanks to abetterrouteplanner.com. Sure, I'm averaging 85km/h, and have to take a ~10min stop every ~2 hours to charge, but that is a welcome pause to visit the toilet or grab a bite.

I had to change a bearing that was getting noisy after 10 years of use, and it cost me €50 in parts and half an hour changing it. I was worried it was going to be a complicated affair, not having done it before, but it was as easy as changing a tire.

Oh, and there is physical buttons for everything! There is a little display that controls the music and shows consumption stats, but it is entirely optional and can be removed completely.

The battery has hardly degraded at all. I'm keeping this thing for as long as I possibly can, it is the perfect car!

> Lack of standards: For 'L3' DC Fast Charging, the Leaf has a CHAdeMO port. Teslas and many newer EVs have NACS. Then there's CCS1 and CCS2. And charging stations are run by multiple vendors with multiple apps and payment methods. It's not like gas stations, like with Shell, BP, Buckee's, etc. where you just drive up, stick the gas nozzle in your tank, and squeeze.

Afaik in Europe, CCS2 is the standard (and mandatory these days), when I rented an EV a few weeks back there was no location which didn’t have it. And all the spots I tried charging at except Tesla accepted card payment (though there were a pair of times it was a struggle getting a card to work).

Apps / memberships will get you cheaper prices but that’s about all I saw (and I didn’t bother with any of it).

TBH the only things that annoyed me were implementation issues of the car (a polestar 4) as well as how overly wide it is. And that the rental company (AVIS) does not provide an AC adapter, so I was not able to charge at any wallplug even though I had the opportunity to charge the car at least twice over in all (I will likely purchase one if that remains their policy and I rent more EVs).

All this is modulo it being summer and a pretty long range model so range anxiety was present but reasonably limited.

How can you write "I bought the cheapest EV" in the blog title, and have a section called "Why buy Leaf?" followed by a one-liner zinger aphorism "Price." without writing... the price you bought your used Nissan Leaf for? Someone might want to reference how much it cost back in 2025 a few years down the road.

I literally bought the cheapest EV:

400 dollars for a 2012 nissan leaf with 80% battery life and 80k miles (saved from being junked.)

MA taxes and delivery made it about 1k when it was all said and done. Insurance is 400/year.

We fit 3 kid seats in the back and have replaced all our metropolitan rides with the nissan. Ostensibly we are all < 6ft tall otherwise the 3 seats wouldn't work.

Our range is 60 miles in the summer, 50 in the winter. Because of how we use it a regular 15 amp plug works for us. Any long trip is taken with our 2018 honda HRV + Thule.

I've been monitoring the usage of our gas car and financially it makes more sense for us to rent a gas car for our trips rather than pay for the ownership + insurance of our car. The math on yearly ownership of the gas car is:

555 treasury yield when selling the car (15000 * 0.05 on a 30 less 30% taxes), 1200 insurance, 200 yearly maintenance (oil changes, amortized tires...), 375 excise tax, 40 inspection

That's about 2.2k/year or about 4 weeks of rental for an SUV. We're still holding on to the gas car for the impromptu apple picking/beach day/day trip that sets us over the 50 mile radius, but zipcar could fill that void

EV's look like EV's because they don't have the same constraints on space that ICEV's do. There is no engine in the front/back, no water pump, no oil pump, no water cooled radiator, no starter motor... so on so on. There's also a great big battery under the floor pan and no gas tank.

They are also heavier, so need different set ups in order to handle decently.

But, that's why they look so different.

Crazy he wouldn't go for a Bolt. I just bought a 2019 Chevy Bolt w/ 11k miles for $14.5k (so a bit over 10k after federal rebate). It has a brand new battery because all the Bolts were recalled for battery issues. Has around 250m range. Feel like I won the lottery. Still plenty of them available https://www.donohooauto.com/searchused.aspx?Make=Chevrolet&M...

> I want an EV that looks like a Camry. Just blend in and don't stand out.

The Camry has a drag coefficient of about 0.36.

The Leaf is about 0.28.

https://ecomodder.com/wiki/Vehicle_Coefficient_of_Drag_List

Drag coefficient matters a lot for EVs. Air resistance reduces the range of all cars, but you notice the decrease in an EV. (When I plan a long trip, I use windy.com to see if I'll have a headwind or a tailwind and I plan accordingly.)

That's why EVs look different. And why EV trucks often have terrible range, even though they have more room for batteries.

* Limiting the number of QCs (Quick Charges / DC Fast Charge), as this heats up the uncooled Leaf battery, degrading it slightly each time, especially on hotter days

* Keeping the charge between 50-80% when manageable

* Charging up to 100% at least once a month, and letting it 'top off' to rebalance the pack for at least a few hours afterwards

* Not driving like a maniac, despite having more torque in this car than I've ever had in any of my previous cars

This kind of thing (minus the driving like a maniac bit) is what puts me off EVs. I guess it's unavoidable? My experience with laptop and phone batteries (holding much less charge pretty quickly) doesn't help. My phone (iPhone 12) says battery health is at 81% but it doesn't feel like it so I'm not sure I'd trust that Leaf saying it's got 93%.

My Problem was always the Range Anxiety.

Until I got an EV and realized it's not really an issue. There is always an App for that (and even on my car the software gets improved in that regard).

Infrastructure is getting better, even companies starting to see it as a benefit to have cheap/free chargers at their offices to get people back.

I see more and more electric trucks on the roads. It feels good.

> And charging stations are run by multiple vendors with multiple apps and payment methods.

I rented a PHEV in Spain, and this was the biggest issue. Every charger has an app. They want all your information, even your home address, before charging. Most of them error out after you try to make it work in the 44 °C / 110 °F Spanish sun.

After trying five charging apps and only succeeding in one, I gave up charging completely because of the horrible experience. I wonder why EVs don't save credit information in the vehicle and negotiate payment with them via some sort of "Cable API" or something. Or even you know, use tap to pay PoS like every normal transaction does.

Car dealerships are so useless. Imagine making a profit but offering this level of service:

> Range Anxiety: Yes, it's overblown, but no, it's not non-existent. The day I bought my used EV, the dealership (which doesn't sell many EVs, even new) didn't have a 'Level 3' DC fast charger—and they had only charged it to about 16%. Letting it top off at L2 while I was dealing with finance, we got to 23%. I wasn't quite sure I'd make it home off the lot! Luckily I did, with 12 miles of range remaining.

Nice, we did the same recently.

The choice was

  2016 100k km Golf Plus for 16k eur 
  2020 50k  km e-Golf    for 13k eur

I'm so glad we picked the e-golf! It's so fast and nice to drive and cheap to run. Only downside is the limited range (200km on a summer day) but even my commute (100km one-way) is OK as I can charge at work and home.

That said, we still have a Touran for when we need to drive further or with lots of luggage.

If only the chairs in the eGolf were a bit better...

> and I found myself with a very short commute, only driving a few miles a day, and a family minivan we use for nearly all the 'driving around the kids' stuff. > > So I wanted a smaller car (get back a foot or so of garage space...) that was also more efficient.

All this to say what he really needs was an electrically assisted bicycle instead of a huge and heavy energy wasting vehicle.

> they shouldn't do 16 on a 15A circuit but it seems like some do

There are 20A 120V circuits too! Called NEMA 5-20, one of its prongs is rotated. You plug that into a receptacle where one of the slots is T-shaped instead of straight. And it's standard practice for EVs to draw 80% of the maximum current, so 16A it is. I see this plug in larger machines in the office, like a large photocopier or a large vacuum.

that's not cheap. Cheap is the older leafs, which go for $3k.

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?auto_make_model=niss...

I bought a 2012 for $7500 in 2016 and drove it for several years.

1. chargers suck. there was evgo, blink, chargepoint. Most locations had 1 or most 2 DC fast chargers, but frequently they didn't work or were busy. Not reliable.

2. range was less that expected, even if you update expectations. It takes engineering to use the range you have, especially taking #1 into account. You don't want to get to a fast charger at 1% then find it doesn't work.

3. the battery health wasn't great, but because the battery capacity/range was less, the number of battery cycles was significantly more. I charged to a higher %, discharged low each day, and cycled daily.

4. the leaf was a perfect "around town" car. Not for trips.

Tesla has basically solved all of this and their cars are usable like a regular car*

* don't be pedantic, in 99% of situations/locations

CHAdeMO is Betamax all over again. It's the best standard because it supports bidirectional power flow, which theoretically allows EVs to support the grid during demand spikes.

But if course CHAdeMO is dying. NACS is second best because it's less bulky than CCS, and NACS is winning in the US so the situation is less bad than it might have been.

> And charging stations are run by multiple vendors with multiple apps and payment methods. It's not like gas stations, like with Shell, BP, Buckee's, etc. where you just drive up, stick the gas nozzle in your tank, and squeeze.

The "how to juice your car" question is pretty much solved on the electrical and communications side... but the "how do you pay for the juice" question is indeed absurd. I understand that providers of high capacity charging stations wish to charge a bit extra because a single 200 kW+ DC charger quickly reaches 40k € in pure hardware cost, in addition to the installation cost and the regular swapping of cables due to thieves. But why the EU and the US governments haven't stepped in yet and mandated either a "roaming" standard (where my primary billing contact would be a regular electric utility with a set base price per kWh and optional surcharges for high-capacity chargers or stations in high demand) or acceptance of all common credit and debit cards is way beyond me.

Instead, it's not just multiple vendors, apps and payment methods - it's also a (sometimes wild) difference in price depending on how you pay, at the same station. In contrast, at each gas station there is a sign that's visible from afar stating the exact price for your fuel, with the only thing one might hope for is a 1 cent discount for high volume diesel fuel pumps (aka, your truck's hole is big enough to fit a truck diesel nozzle) and a further 1 cent discount from some sort of loyalty reward scheme.

I recently had a similar situation but the chademo charger was the deal breaker for me here in the UK. Yes they exist, but perhaps each station would have 1 chademo Vs 3 or 4 CCS2, while other more recent stations are only CCS2. And even if there is one there, the chademo would only be 45 or 50kw while the newer CCS2 ones are frequently 150+kw now. I think I only ever saw a 100kw chademo once (...or maybe I imagined that?!)

Some lexus things used chademo too.

Ended up getting a used VW id.3 which ticks a lot of the leaf's boxes, but has CCS2 and 100+kw dc charging

I briefly owned a gen 1 leaf. It went from 70 miles of “range” (more like 25) at 100% to 50 in a couple of years of very light driving. Poor guy who bought it from me had all kinds of trouble trying to get it home.

I ended up grabbing an Ioniq fully electric 2019 and i absolutely love it. Got it for a decent used cost, interior wise it was like new, no huge touch screen, but a decent one for CarPlay and Android Auto, real knobs and buttons, and the online portion is entirely obsolete since it used 3G so it has no connection to the internet! It’s perfect for me

According to IIHS insurance loss data, https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/auto-insurance/insurance... , here's the chance of being injured while riding in one of these cars (and filing an insurance claim) relative to the average US vehicle:

    - Nissan Leaf -15% (Select "Small" & "4-door Cars" on the page)
    - Chevy Bolt -34%
    - Subaru Crosstrek -28% ("Station wagons" & "Small")
    - Tesla Model 3 +26% ("Luxury cars" & "Midsize")

So the choice of Nissan Leaf was OK from a safety perspective, but the Chevy Bolt is better. The Tesla is much worse.

> No gasoline-powered car (outside of supercars, maybe? Never drove one of those) could match the feel of pressing the throttle on an electric.

Probably need to be careful with this because flooring it is addictive and you'll waste a lot of energy doing it.

For me the feeling of an electric car gave me a strange feeling. I just felt like I was in an electric wheelchair. It really hammered home the ridiculousness of able-bodied people travelling around town in these huge electric wheelchairs. I don't hold much hope for the future but I'd love to be able to live in a town without these things around.

When we moved, my wife was looking for an electric scooter to get to the train station for a commute to work. When we considered the weight and practicality in bad weather, we found new Dacia Spring 2023 model for 14,000 € in sales. It's a game changer since we charge it exclusively at home for about 1 € per 200 km range. There is virtually no maintenance. Having a VW Passat diesel for longer trips, we cannot be happier.

Electric Vehicle Man on Youtube did a review of a 2000 pound second hand Renault Zoe that he picked up a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEvwtxGeVpQ

The second hand market for EVs is getting pretty interesting. There are lots of EV owners that are replacing their EVs every few years and because of all the growth over the last 10 years, there are now quite a few fairly nice EVs on the second hand market. Many are typically still under drive train warranty. For example, the model 3 has only been on the market for about eight years and it came with eight years of warranty on the drive train. So, most of the second hand ones would still be under warranty. And most of the EV market only started growing after that. So this is true for many second hand EVs.

And car batteries don't seem to spontaneously stop working right after the warranty expires either. So the risk is fairly low. They'll eventually degrade. But if you can pick up a car for a few thousand and then drive it for another 5-10 years, who cares? The fuel savings alone pay for the car after just a few years. Add the savings on maintenance and you are basically in the plus.

> I hate every time I have to jack up my car and change the brakes, or take it in for oil/fluid changes

This is is such a weird take. Most EVs weigh a lot more than a ICE car (although the Leaf is about the same as most normal sized sedans) so the brake pads wear more quickly. And anyone that takes the time to change their brakes is likely doing their own oil changes because it takes 15 minutes.

The rest of the write-up is pretty spot on though. I leased a Hyundai Ioniq 6 2 years ago because I thought I would enjoy the driving experience. I was living in Philly and at the time it was my only car so I used it for trips to other parts of the city as well as any driving around the northeast to see friends and family. It's amazing for local driving, but doing any kind of drive that was more than 100 miles was a logistical pain. Even if you plan out the stops, you are still constantly worrying about whether or not there will be a long line to charge or the chargers themselves are broken even if they are reported as working in the apps.

I've since moved to the suburbs and my partner uses the Ioniq to commute to work because it's perfect for that. For any longer trips, we opt for our ICE car.

The only future foray I would consider with EVs is doing something like an EV conversion on my kei truck. Hopefully the Slate and Telo are the start of a wave of small EV trucks because I love the idea of a small truck that I can use to bring to Home Depot or to pick up larger FB Marketplace purchased.

Last year, I got a found a great deal on a gently used Chevy Bolt EUV 2023 model with only about 8k miles on it for about $16k USD from Hertz. Granted, I had to fly out of state to pick it up, but it was a great experience all together. Learned quickly that this car is not a road tripping car as it took over an hour to charge to 80%.

However, it is an amazing commuter car. Being able to charge it at home is fantastic.

We already put 14k miles on it since we got it last year.

Am I blind or he doesn't the mention the price anywhere in the post?!

Its fun to witness EVs living up to their original promise. Yes, the 1st generation of EVs without battery heating and cooling were mostly disposable experiments to catch-up with Tesla. That much is fact. However, the late model, new-wave of EVs (with proper battery technology) have crushed every excuse, except for variety.

I was super in favor of EVs in EU to the moment I visited Germany to notice that 3/4 of all cars were disel cars and getting pushed to green laws is a scam.

I enjoy driving good cars that roar nice, so bought a new disel car that can drive 180/h without sweating much.

I value my time more than anything else.

Not possible everywhere because of bad (car oriented) infrastructure, but an e-bike would be more optimal for this person's commute since they're "only driving a few miles a day".

No insurance, fun, repair it yourself, etc

Bought a leaf for 13k five years ago. It’s saved us 10k in fuel over that time compared to petrol car. NO BRAINER

As European it really struck me how poor the second hand ev market must be in the US. For the “cheap second hand car to do short distances” we have a lot of options really cheap - older gen Renault Zoe and Peugeot e208s, leafs, even the old hyundai Ioniq which is a bit of a cult favourite for its efficiency

I was thinking about buying the leaf but I have a 2012 Honda Fit and my monthly gas expense is so cheap that I didn't bother. I use the car often but for mainly short drives within the city.

They're good for cheap ev conversions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC_xLe306M8&t=1174s fun watch.

Leaf is great. Parents have the first model, and I love driving it whenever I'm visiting. Even after the battery degraded to under 90 miles, I was still able to make any drive I needed and recharge at home. Charging infrastructure around town has gotten a lot better too and I think when I have kids and need a car, the leaf is where I'll start my search.

Also, it's really incredible that the dealer only had the leaf charged to 16% at the time of sale.

> With EVs there are tradeoffs. Even in my situation, only driving a car a few miles a day, I do take my car on one or two regional road trips every year.

That's how we ended up with a Chevy Volt in 2017. 100K trouble-free miles later, we still have it and my wife still loves the car.

My dream is a young person is that Nissan would release an affordable car that me and my homeless little brother could sleep in comfortably. We both are in college pursuing CS degrees and it's getting difficult.

Huh, i see a bunch of used Renault Zoes for about 5k or less in my area. I wonder if they hold up as well.

The Leaf's used to be pretty bad as far as electric cars went, with no active battery cooling or heating. I was pretty tempted to get a used Bolt EV. I've seen them for sub 20k with less than 30k miles on them. I've been driving around in my wife's older Subaru Crosstrek plug in hybrid, which works fine for the limited amount of driving I do to commute to work. We plan to give that car to my son once he gets his license.

Good job. I have driven ( for at least 2 trips ) a TeslaS a TeslaX, a Leaf, and EV-1... The Leaf was the easiest to use the regenerative breaking, and the very most efficient at it. Using the 80Mile model, and hand waxing the outside ( a favorite of the 100Mpg Prius group ) I was able to go 69.5 Miles, with 22% remaining. 28% more efficient than rated. This was a mostly highway traveled trip, with a bunch of city errand running at the end.

Both I and the owner were very impressed. They ordered the 100mile battery pack, which was very expensive, but it has been great in the long run.

I think it was like 81% cheaper than a gasoline trip at the time not including long term wear and tear. ( Ware and Tare?$#).

I think the Nissan Leaf is the very best of the bunch.

The trick with neutral in the leaf is that you have to hold the gear selector in the neutral direction for about a second. No relation to brake pedal timing as far as I can tell. No idea why neutral has that delay given none of the other “gears” do.

I have a Kia Niro EV 2024.

Before buying this car I didn't like driving.

Now I like driving.

Actually, I like it so much that I began doing something I never did before with any car I had: I read the whole owner's manual, I wash and clean the car every month and I pay attention to maintenance routine.

That's how good it feels to drive electric.

(...)I'm trying to do some things to extend the battery's life as long as possible (...) Not driving like a maniac.

Oops. My work daily is the same Leaf, my personal car is a '95 1.8 Turbo Miata. The Leaf suffers.

So here's the thing that's coming for EVs, and I finally started to see it for the Leaf: driveway DIY battery replacement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIQ-RROpls0

Yes, this involves lying on your back with a 700 lb battery held up by jacks just inches above your head. But heck, services are expensive these days so it's going to happen.

> One pedal driving Seriously, why doesn't every EV have this mode? It makes driving one feel SO much better than any gas car, in terms of connection between driver and car movement.

_ANY_ gas car? 100% of manual transmission cars (and now PDK/DSG/DCT) have this.

I drove a 2015 Nissan Leaf for almost 10 years before upgrading this year to a Model Y.

When it comes to charging network Tesla is SO MUCH BETTER. It's hard to describe how much of a wild west other charging networks are. You have to download this app or that app, add a credit card here, add one there. De-rated charging handles absolutely everywhere.

> They seem to not require an Internet connection for their cars

That would be the only reason to get that car now days! Can the car just drive without Internet. I want my car to be my not connected to cloud for all kinds crap.

I agree with the ugly comments, which is why I went with the Cupra Born (2024)! It’s like a sporty space egg and I love it haha

Hmm, my friend had a 2015 Leaf, the interior seemed much nicer and more modern than this 2023 model.

> There is no 'play/pause' button. Anywhere. At least not on the steering wheel or the display area. You have to go into the music section on the entertainment display, then press the software play/pause button. That's dumb.

My new to me 2023 Honda Odyssey has the same stupid issue. It's my first vehicle with a touch screen, and I have a lot of trouble hitting the pause button especially when I'm trying to mute it because I need to pay extra attention to the road. WHY is there not just a Play/Pause button on the wheel!? Or at least a physical button on the dashboard.

My neighbor has an Ioniq 5, styling-wise it's cooler than my Tesla. Reminds me of Corrado -- one of my favorite cars. But we have had night and day experiences with charging our EVs.

The supercharger network seems effortless & flawless -- almost too good. No payments, planning. The stations are clean, quiet & secluded. Just follow the Nav and charge.

The third-party network has been a disaster for my neighbor. He's had to back track many times, even on ~ 2 hr trips. The chargers are broken, causing him to double-back even more. On a recent trip the only working charger was next to a gas station and the fumes made his wife sick. He has 4+ apps to manage charging payments .

How on earth do people tolerate other EVs?

The cheapest EV would be a BYD Surf, but unfortunately you cannot find used cars of these yet in Europe. Too new. Eying those for a while

I half expected to read that he devised a charging circuit for it controlled by a raspberry pi. I was somewhat disappointed when it turned out to be a normal blog post about buying a car.

> found myself with a very short commute, only driving a few miles a day > No gasoline-powered car [...] could match the feel of pressing the throttle on an electric.

You know what is unmatched for joyful travel through space, with occasional bursts of adrenaline? Especially practical over short distances of a few miles?

A bicycle! Especially when you already have one vehicle for family obligations.

I snicker when I see those ads that promise you'll be just whooshing around through rolling hills in your newest automotive purchase. No, buddy, you'll be gnashing teeth in traffic most of the time.

I want one just as a “house battery backup” and beater car. Something along the lines of 800W ecoflow inverter in the leaf to delta pro to house. But I don’t fully know how the air cooled aspect of the leaf would impact this idea.

> CarlinKit 5.0 Wireless CarPlay/Android Auto adapter because the Leaf only supports wired CarPlay by default

OMG this may have just saved my life that this is a thing

though it looks like there are ones with much better reviews

@Jeff:

Are you worried or thought about resale value? Do you plan to keep it for long?

Why not a bicycle? This seems overkill for "a few miles" which I take to mean 4 Even an ebike seems overkill for this

Nice work! Cool to see the mix of personal story and practical EV tips, especially the GitHub angle.

You should never purchase EVs, only lease them. That's what I did. This saves you from the terrible depreciation they have.

The only time it makes sense to buy an EV is if it's used.

Edit: He bought used.

Something which this article highlights is the lack of reliable rail in the USA.

Where I am there is a decent rail network, and the rail provider has a fleet of EVs for rent, where the cost of the electricity is included. This provides a "green" last mile solution even if the public transport itself in each area may be lacking (often it's not however).

So a trip looks like this:

Hop on the train which quickly takes the lion's-share of the travelling distance, then switch to an EV that fills the gap to the final destination/s. Then do this process in reverse to get home.

This approach solves the largest problems presented by the author.

Looks like you bought a faulty computer which happens to have 4 wheels buddy.

The neutral and parking brake issues: that just by itself should make Nissan stocks plummet. 2025 and we have these issues? It definitely looks an involution to me.

Things we humans are still lame at: adapters. Power adapters, cable data adapters. Why do we have bazillions adapters?

Can't we just design one adapter for the whole world that makes happy both manufacturers and customers? If not governments should step in and force manufacturers to include all adapters ever needed as part of a car purchase. That you have to spend more money just to charge a car because of the adapter is ridiculous.

If EVs are in this line of quality/user experience in general, thanks I'll pass and get something reliable and old school that actually works as expected.

Edit: And we don't need mobile apps to control our cars. Another really stupid and ridiculous idea that has been pushed to customers when no-one actually asked for that.

Ceramic heater replacement anyone?

Even cheaper is a bicycle and use your body fat as a battery.

That's what I've been doing for ~1 year and have lost over 14 lbs.

2023 is new wow

Not the cheapest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV

"In 2020, the Mini EV had a price starting at US$4,162, and topped out at US$5,607 for a fully loaded model, making it China's cheapest electric car."